Poison Alert

COMMUNITY SAFETY

Parents Should Secure Cabinets That Ar Minefields For Young Children.

A curious toddler reaches for grandma's cardiac pills left out on a table and swallows them.

It's a common scene with children who are poisoned and brought to Boca Raton Community Hospital, said Dr. Gail Rubin-Kwal.

Scenerios also include the less common type of poisoning, like the 8-year-old boy who was attracted to a plant in his school yard last November and touched the yellow pepper inside. Then he touched his mouth with his fingers full of kapsicum - an ingredient used in pepper-spray.

Poisons are found in every room in the house. From sleeping drugs, jewelry cleaner, rubbing alcohol to oven cleaner, the risks for a child to inhale or ingest a toxin is high without proper supervision and prevention, officials said.

Officials say people can never be too careful in locking up dangerous items or keeping them out of reach.

"Poisons [can be found) every day, all over the house, the workplace," said Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue Inspector John Dunbar. "One [death) is too many."

There are 250,000 cases of poisons that are ingested, injected or inhaled throughout the state each year, said Dr. Richard Weisman, spokesman for the Florida Poison Information and Toxicology Resource Center in Miami.

Weisman said 50 percent of all children will have one poison exposure before their 5th birthday.

"It's an unbelievably large problem in kids under age 5 or 6," he said.

Although statistics are not available, Weisman said each year deaths related to poisonings have gone down, but the numbers of exposures - based on residents calling state poison information hotlines - have gone up.

In unincorporated Palm Beach County, 57 people came into contact with poison in some form from October 1993 to September 1994, said Kathy Owens, Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue special projects coordinator. Of those, 17 fell victim to one of the more common causes of poisoning - cleaning chemicals.

In the previous year, the agency dealt with 62 cases of poisoning. Cleaning chemicals were the source of poisoning in eight cases.

In Boca Raton, no figures were available but they are "reasonably rare," said Boca Raton Fire-Rescue spokesman Lt. Bruce Angier.

In Delray Beach, there were about five to 10 calls about poisoning in 1994, said city Fire Department spokesman Doug Trawick. The calls were mostly concerning children.

"Little kids have a tendency to put everything they find in their mouth," Trawick said.

Trawick's advice to parents: "Watch your children. Kids by nature are curious and have no sense of what's dangerous and what's not. Stay one step ahead of them."

In Boynton Beach, the response to poison-ingested calls increased by one, said Boynton Beach Fire Department spokesman Bob Borden. In 1993, there were four cases; in 1994, there were five.

Between carnival rides and midway shows this week, South Florida fair-goers can learn about poison prevention.

Palm Beach Cosunty Fire-Rescue's 1980 refurbished school bus - the 911 Prevention Way Bus - is at the South Florida Fair to demonstrate poison safety, such as how to lock up cabinets to keep children from reaching inside.

The bus simulates the inside of a home, and visitors can also learn the proper way to set up smoke detectors.The county Sheriff's Office will demonstrate door locks, Dunbar said.

The fair, at the South Florida Fairgrounds, 9067 Southern Blvd. in West Palm Beach, runs through Sunday.